Into the Nest
by Mystic25
Summary: Tag to: "Soul Eater" Taking care of Bobby and Rufus' unfinished last house on this case.
1. Chapter 1

"Into the Nest"

Mystic25

Tag to: "Soul Eater" Taking care of Bobby and Rufus' unfinished last house on this case.

Rating M: for imagery and language.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

"This time _you're_ going into the nest."

~Dean Winchester

Supernatural: Episode "Soul Eater"

 **xxxxXxxx**

The house in Tennessee was made of clapboards that looked like they had been nailed on top of each other after falling from the sky. The boards were once painted a moss green, but neglect to the exterior had caused them to peel and crumble, transforming them from moss green to a dingy gray. The house looked ominous, even through the windows of the Impala as Dean stared up at its two stories from the road.

"So that's it," Sam was in the driver's seat, it had been his swap out time to drive at the last gas station they filled up at (in gas, beer, and Cool Ranch Doritos). The house was set back from the road by a good two hundred feet, boarded by a wooden fence that squeezed into the side of it like a corset. "It looks abandoned-"

"The fence looks freshly painted," Dean pointed to the wooden fence that was painted in a shade of moss green that the house itself had once been. "Who would bother painting a fence on a depilated piece of crap like that?"

"Beats me," Sam said. "I mean it does make it easier – no FBI guise to do on this one."

"No," Dean agreed. "Just one evil soul sucking bastard to trap through two dimensions, total layup right?"

"Dude-" Sam said to the look Dean was giving him, the I _told you so,_ expression.

"Come on," Dean took one last look at the house which looked back like it was daring him to enter it. "Sooner we get this done the sooner you can buy me a beer that isn't combined with an energy drink," He smacked Sam on the chest and opened the door to his car with a squeak.

 **xxxxXxxx**

The only walkway up to the house was a pile of crumbled rocks that had either once been bricks, or had _always_ been a pile of crumbled rocks. The yard all around the house had gone to seed, taken over by knee high in long blades of grass with drying edges and white dandelions puffs. The walkway navigated through the grass in a winding serpentine like way, ending at the base of four steps that walked up to the kind of porch that was normally reserved for the cover of _Southern Living_. A white porch swing hung on the right side of the porch, swinging in the warm breeze from rusted chains. Across from the swing was a white rattan patio set that had turned rusty at some point when the Soul Eater moved in and when the house had obviously been abandoned.

Two wide and low mullioned framed windows looked inside the house from the porch, but they were boarded up by two-by-fours that were nailed crossways across both of them, the same was true for the door.

Dean pried the gray boards off the muddy red door with just the smallest _squeak_ of resistance from the nails that held them down. He dropped the boards to the porch with a clatter and twisted the knob, meeting with resistance once again. A quick job of his lock pick had the door swinging open on rusted hinges into a dust filled darkness.

Sam clicked on his flashlight, shining it through that darkness and stepped through the doorway. As soon as he did, there came a sensation of _weight._

"You feel that?" Sam turned to Dean who stood behind him, flashlight also on, in a foyer entranceway. Both of them were only one step over the threshold of the door.

The air in the house felt _wrong_ , heavy with an ominous sort of weight, like something was physically pressing down on their chests, trying to crush them.

"Yeah." Dean almost found it hard to walk through the room, like he was trudging through a swamp. He moved his flashlight across the room to white sheet covered furniture and dusty lamps that sat on equally dusted end tables. "I thought Bobby and Rufus locked this place down."

"They did," Sam stepped further into the house, the floorboards below squeaking discordantly under his feet. "But this place doesn't look like it's been in for a long time, maybe the seal eroded."

Dean stepped over the floorboards of the foyer, moving his flashlight beam across what looked like a living room. His light fell on a coffee table and stopped. "Or maybe something did it for him-"

Sam intersected his beam over Dean's. The coffee table was a squat thing of wood and glass with a long horizontal crack across it, resting on top of it was an Styrofoam takeout container and a plastic drink cup that leaked condensation onto the glass.

Dean flipped the lid of the Styrofoam box open. A greasy burger and fat home fries with fresh grease glistening off of them stared back at him. "How much you willing to bet that whoever painted the fence outside is squatting in here?"

"Hey," Sam tapped Dean across the chest. "Check this out," he swept his beam up past the coffee table and along the wall on the far right of the living room. It was covered in a dark burgundy colored wallpaper with a hanging of cobwebs overhead. A rectangular gilt framed wall mirror lay leaning on the wall on its side.

Sam's flashlight was aimed higher up to the wall itself where a dark red seal was drawn over the wall paper. The image was half rubbed out, and next to the mirror on the floor was a metal bucket.

Dean walked over to the bucket and kicked it with his foot, soapy water sloshed out of it. He reached inside the bucket, pulling out a damp peanut shaped sponge. "Great, a squatter with a thing for spring cleaning-" he dropped the sponge back into the water with a _plop,_ standing back erect to examine the sigil on the wall. "The seal's been half rubbed off; I'm guessing whoever the genius is, sprung the Soul Eater from its cell when they attempted to squeegee the walls."

"They could still be in the house-" Sam shone his beam up a set of wooden stairs that clung like a vine to the of the living room and disappeared into the darkness. "We should check first."

"Sam, they were stupid enough to let the Soul Eater out-"

"They don't deserve to _die_ Dean; they didn't even know what they were doing." Sam said. "If they're here we need to get them out."

"They might already be trapped in the Nest," Dean said. "Our priority is icing this evil twin first, otherwise finding anyone in this house won't do any good."

Sam finally relented. "Right-" He spied a small hallway at the end of the living room that went straight, then turned left. At the end of this turn there was the peaking of a swinging wooden door, that he had suspicions led to the kitchen.

"Hang on-" Sam walked through the living room and to the hallway, and disappeared. A minute later there came pounding on the wall to the left with the mirror on in a rhythmic tune of ' _shave and a haircut'_

Dean pounded back twice on the wall with the side of his fist. _Two bits._

Another minute later, Sam emerged back into the living room, his flashlight shining in front of him.

"Kitchen?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "They share a wall, same as the other house. Best bet, we set this up the same way we did there."

"Except I want the kitchen this time," Dean said. "There are more things to ream you into should you hulk out with Soul Eater juice-" Dean held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I promise to be gentle."

Despite the thickness in the air Sam managed a laugh half forced out on disbelief about how bad his night was about to get. "Let's just get this over with."

Dean placed the weapon's duffle slung across his shoulder on the coffee table, pushing aside the Styrofoam box of food and the drink cup. He unzipped the bag, pulling out two hunting knives with six inch blades and serrated edges. He handed one of the blades to Sam. He also pulled out a small glass mason jar without a lid. He sliced the knife blade over his palm and flipped his hand over, squeezing his blood inside the jar with a grunt. "This is not my idea of a fun Saturday night, man," he grunted more as he squeezed his hand harder over the jar, a pool of blood starting to collect on the bottom of the glass. "Next week, we're hitting Vegas."

"I'll check upstairs," Sam lit his flashlight up the path of stairs. "That's where the last one jumped you- maybe it's cousin likes the same pattern." Sam turned and began walking towards the stairs, knife drawn out.

"Sammy-"

Dean's voice turned Sam back around, one foot was resting on the first stair.

"Watch yourself."

Sam gave a nod to Dean, turning back around and walking up the stairs to the second story.

The staircase was built in two sections with a wooden landing at the midway point. Sam let his flashlight travel up the stairs to the top level before he did, the light spreading out to what looked like a long hallway. He walked up the last set of steps and, indeed, found himself in hallway that extended back about thirty feet from the staircase. There was an empty space to his right with a carved wooden railing on the left that overlooked the first floor. Dean's flashlight shone up through the darkness, the light finding him. Sam looked down at his brother one level below one last time before stepping down the darkened hallway.

The hallway had four white doors: one on the right, two on the left, and one dead ahead. Sam crept slowly across the floor, stepping as lightly as he could to not make the floorboards squeak like he had done downstairs. He kept his knife drawn out; the Soul Eater wasn't exactly vulnerable to a knife wound; he just didn't want to have his guard down. He pushed open the doors one at a time by their brass knobs. The one on the left led to a bathroom that smelled like damp water and drying towels like it had recently been used. The door dead ahead and the first one on the right were both bedrooms: the first one a master bedroom done in gray and buttercream yellow. The other one was painted an angry orange color; a ripped Janis Joplin poster tacked to the outside of the door, and a clutter of cosmetics were strewn across a vanity- no doubt a room from some angst filled teen.

The last door, the one next to the orange bedroom, opened to room the color of cobalt blue. A twin bed sat in the middle of the room against the far wall, a headboard that was also a built in shelf, held a catcher's mitt and several small trophies half buried in dust. The bed's comforter was baseball themed, and lay open to wrinkled gray sheets. Like the bathroom, the bedroom looked recently used, which didn't fit the bill of an abandoned house.

Sam stepped over to the bed, his boots crunching on something on the floor. He dropped his flashlight beam down and saw a group of green army men scattered on the floor, next to an open plastic tub half filled with the green toys. He highly doubted the squatter was a kid, because why would a kid take time to clean the walls in the living room? Either whoever had this bedroom before had been mid play when they had to leave, or even weirder, the squatter was an adult who broke into abandoned places to play with children's toys.

He swept his flashlight beam back up across the room slowly, past a small baseball shaped nightlight casting a tiny yellow glow from the outlet it was plugged into, over framed pictures of a boy smiling in a little league uniform buried under two layers of dust. He let his light wander slowly over the walls, across a Derek Jeter poster tacked to the painted surface, jumping back when a dark shape stared back at him from the wall. He raised his knife out, then let out a huffed breath when he realized that he was looking at his reflection in a mirror attached to powder blue dresser. The amount of blue in the room was overkill to denote a boy in Sam's opinion, but then again, he had learned to throw a knife at age seven, so he wasn't one to talk the way parents raised their kids.

Something dropped to the wooden floor with a _thunk_ behind him. He turned, the flashlight beam sweeping behind him, knife drawn out.

A baseball rolled across the floor to his feet at a slant from a bookshelf it had fallen off of.

He reached down and picked it up off the floor, rotating the white sewn leather in his hand, looking into the half darkened room. "Come on-" he said, half prepared, half not wanting to be prepared.

Something slammed into him, knocking him hard to the floor on his back. The baseball dropped from his hand, tumbling away onto the floorboards. The knife was sent clattering out of his hand stopping half under the space under the bed. He felt a bone crushing grip on his ankle and the sharp pain of something clawing into his flesh. He reached up with one arm over his head; feeling that the knife was just a few millimeters away from his fingers.

The grip on his ankle became even harder, pulling, wrenching, like it knew what Sam was trying to reach. He stretched his arms to the point of dislocation. His fingers finally brushing the tip of the blade; he closed the knife blade his into his grip as the force yanked him with a fierce jerk across the floor at a speed that sent the world whizzing into black.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

The white door opened with a slam against the opposite wall into the blue bedroom.

"Sam!" Dean lowered the beam of his flashlight and dropped beside Sam who lay on his back on the floor in a scatter of toy army men. He pressed two fingers against Sam's neck, feeling his heat beating wildly against his touch. Warm breath blew onto his fingers when he laid his hand under Sam's nose. Satisfied that Sam wasn't technically dead, Dean pocketed stowed his flashlight into his jacket and pocketed his knife, grabbing the knife that Sam had dropped under the bed.

"C'mon," Dean bent down to lift one of Sam's arms up over his shoulder. He grunted when he hauled Sam's limp form over his body in a fireman's carry. "You gotta stop eating so much-" He hefted Sam's weight across his back until it was as even as he could make it, and staggered out of the bedroom with his brother's weight.


	2. Chapter 2

Water dripped on Sam's eyes. He opened them to find himself still on the floor of the blue bedroom. The baseball shaped nightlight wasn't on anymore, the room was hung with an eerily gray blue light that seemed to curl at the floor like mist. The water continued to drip on him, splashing into the crevice made by his nose and the corner of his eyelids. He pushed himself up from the floor with a groan.

It was raining inside the bedroom, falling in drops that created large puddles onto the floor by his feet. He stood up, the weight of his knife still in his hand. His clothes and hair were soaked through with an eerie sort of weight, that seemed one-part rainwater and five parts walking through a thick fog and having the fog stick to him still in smoke form. Water dripped off of his fingers, sliding down the handle of his knife blade.

Sam stepped over the bedroom floor, walking around the same group of army men he had seen before, the plastic tub full of water, droplets continuing to fall into it with tiny _plinking_ noises. His shoes squeaked from the water they absorbed; he raised his knife and stepped out of the bedroom.

The rain followed him, becoming heavier as he walked out into the hallway, falling into thick sheets. He waded through the puddles on the floor that almost reached to the toes of his boots, moving towards staircase at the end of the hallway.

" _Dean-"_

At the end of the hallway, sprawled out against the wooden railing was Dean, flat on his back, eyes closed, not moving, gun in his limp hand, his face a mess of bloody gashes.

The Devil was leaning over Dean wearing Cas's body, hand was deep inside a bloody hole deep in Dean's chest. Lucifer looked up when Sam called out to Dean, a stain like smile spreading across his face.

" _No worries champ – I won't kill him, remember?_ " Lucifer pulled his hand out of Dean's chest, holding up one of Dean's lungs tangled up in a string of his intestines. _"This is just something we play at."_

Sam's breath choked in his throat, he closed his eyes tightly and when he opened them again, the garish sight was gone. He breathed out hard, continuing down the hall, descending the two flights of stairs with framed pictures of a family smiling at him on the walls.

He emerged back into the living room, walking past the white sheet draped furniture to the wall of the living room that was shared by the kitchen. The mirror still hung on the wall, but it was in a different spot, about half a foot left from where it hung in the actual house. Water dripped down the reflected glass, clouding up the image of the darkened room behind him. Through the raindrops, a gray figure stood in the reflection.

Sam whipped around, knife drawn out. But there was nothing behind him, no sounds but the eerie pelting of rain falling indoors on hardwood floors and furniture.

He turned back to the wall, drawing the knife to his hand, slicing twice across his palm in the shape of an X; a well of blood sprung up from the vertex of the two cuts. He squeezed his palm closed to bring more blood to the surface, opening it again to an overflowing amount of red, blood pumping out fast into his cupped palm from the adrenaline racing through his heart. He dipped two fingers into the blood, shaking off the water soaking into his hair, and began to draw on the wall.

"Okay Dean-"

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean stumbled into the wall, the side of Sam's head slamming into the lintel of the door as he emerged through the narrow stairwell that led to the kitchen.

Dean heaved a breath and pushed Sam's weight off of him and up against a wall on his right, keeping him pinned there with an elbow across Sam's chest. He lifted Sam's limp head, turning it left and right to make sure he didn't crack his skull or anything. He didn't feel any blood or see any bruises.

"Sorry bro," Dean apologized with a firm pat to Sam's chest. " _Alright, sit down,"_ he panted as he pushed his weight into Sam to make his drop to the floor less injury inducing as possible. He got Sam down to the ground in a slide against the wall, leaning him up against a blonde oak kitchen cabinet, letting Sam's head tilt down to fall against it.

Once Sam was down Dean pulled himself up using the oak counter as leverage, still panting, cracking his back with a grunt. "I'm too damn old for this."

The kitchen was shaped like a large square with blonde oak cabinets and an island in the middle with copper pots hanging over it, their bottoms covered in rust. Florescent lights were on overhead, with one burnt out bulb, emitting a quiet buzzing into the room, bathing the kitchen in shadowed white light. At the back end of the kitchen was a door that must have led into the hallway Sam found that connected to the living room. A long wooden table with bench seating sat against a rectangular window with a view of a weedy backyard surrounded by a high wooden fence. At the head of the table was a white refrigerator that hummed with life.

Dean watched his unconscious brother, not liking how vulnerable he looked. "Alright, let's do this-" He walked over to the island where he had already set his duffle bag, beside the bag was the mason jar of his blood, and his and Sam's hunting knives. He picked up the last of these two items and walked around to a bare spot on the moss green painted wall that was on the same side that he and Sam had agreed to use and looked like it was wide enough to take the size sigil he needed to paint on

He dipped his hands inside the warm blood, not enjoying the sensation at all of scooping out from a jar of his own blood. He began painting the sigil on the wall, face screwing up in disgust at the warmth on his hand. He glanced over at Sam again. "Vegas after this Sammy, _Vegas._ Strippers."

He dipped his hand back inside the jar, smearing more blood onto the wall, making the strokes as thick as he could while still going fast– not wanting Sam to be in that darkened hole longer than possible.

* * *

 **xxxXxxx**

Sam drew an intersecting line on the Celtic symbol. The blood in his hand had almost dried up, but squeezing it harder gave him enough into his palm to dip into. He closed the line he was drawing and started another one.

" _I've never seen you before-"_

He glanced up to the mirror, seeing the same gray figure he had caught a glimpse of earlier. He turned around, and this time figure remained there.

A man in a shirt and faded jeans, a knife like Sam's in his hand, but only the hilt, the blade was missing. There was something wrong with the man's face – his expression looked _melted_ , eyes downcast and drooping like one of the sad clown paintings Dean used to show him at flea markets just to scare the shit out of him. A burnt out looking blackness wrung the man's mouth; his clothes and skin were all a washed out gray, like the Nest had sucked their color away. The rain continued to poor from the ceiling, but the figure was not getting wet from it.

Sam stared at the man, seeing the way he held himself in a fighting stance, even with a bladeless knife: _"Harv?"_

The figure blinked, like he hadn't heard its name in a long time, he held up the knife hilt. _"Who the hell are you?"_ His voice sounded faded and reverberated on an echo.

"I'm," Sam stared at the knife hilt, not counting it out as a weapon entirely because of the way Harv held it out, like he believed it would inflict damage. "My name's Sam Winchester-I'm a friend of Bobby Singer's-"

Harv's face screwed up at the mention of Bobby's name: "Don't say that name to me!" the broken knife hilt angled like he was turning the absent blade onto Sam "that SOB _abandoned_ me-"

"No" Sam said. "Bobby tried to save you – he just didn't know how-"

"Oh and you do boy?-" Harv laughed a jumble of echoes and noise, then went sober like he was thinking about something. _"Winchester?_ You're one of the boys that opened the Devil's Gate, set all those demons loose from hell."

"No, that was a long time ago- Harv," Sam held up his hand like Harv was an animal that might spook if he moved too fast. "You've been trapped here for almost a _decade_ -but I'm going to get you out."

"Bobby couldn't get me out," Harv lowered his eyes to Sam's feet and traveled them up to his face in one of the most analyzing and stripping looks Sam had ever experienced. "Who the hell are you to say you can?"

"Listen to me," Sam raised his hand up higher, his knife blade flat out. "You've been trapped by a Soul Eater."

" _Soul Eater?_ " Harv said the name like he had eaten something bad. "Kid, I was hunting when you were still wearing diapers, I've never come across something like that-"

"It's real," Sam said. " _Trust_ _me_. My brother and I- we killed one just a few days ago. This place you're in, it's its Nest. It trapped you in here."

"Is that what you call it?" Harv circled Sam, gripping the knife hilt tighter his hand. "I call it _hell_."

"We found a way to kill it," Sam said. We can get you out, and all the others that are trapped here with you."

"And once I get out where do I go?" Harv squared his gaze on Sam. "You suckers have my body stashed somewhere on ice waiting for me to move back in?"

"I don't know-"

Harv's gaze narrowed, "So you finger paint on the wall and it sets me free, and then what? I've been out of my body as long as you say I have, its broke down and useless – so what happens then? I turn into a vengeful ghost?"

"Anyplace has to be better than here-"

"That a fact Sam?" Harv began looking around the room in a slow turn, like he was people watching in a crowd. A crowd that Sam couldn't see.

"I don't know."

" _You don't know?"_ Harv whispered this to himself then laughed again, a broken, off sounding laugh, echoing into still living room. "What the hell _do_ you know boy? What kind of Hunter are you?"

Sam felt something very unsettling about the way Harv kept looking at him, like someone who had been confined for far too long being let out into a crowded street. As Harv drawn closer, Sam saw that his eyes were cast in a thin sort of milky white, blocking the color of his pupils. "Just hang tight alright- You'll be out of here soon."

Sam turned back to the sigil he was painting, keeping his knife drawn with his fingertips, watching the mirror to his left. He applied more blood to the sigil with one hand angling his body so that his stance was prepared to turn at moment's notice.

The rain picked up in intensity, fat drops began to slide down the wall, running down the blood on the wall, blurring out the sigil. Sam tried to apply more blood to the symbol, but the wallpaper was now too wet too absorb the stain of blood. Sam raised his knife and slashed a tear in the wallpaper, pulling back at the frayed ends until he reached the layer of wood and plaster beneath that was damp, but not soaking wet. He sliced into his hand again, and pressed it against the exposed plaster, quickly redrawing the pieces of the sigil that had torn away with the wallpaper, bracing his other arm against the wall, using his body as a shield to keep the plaster dry as he worked.

The rain felt like a heavy summer storm Sam had felt staying at in Texas one summer, it dripped into his eyes and stung because he wouldn't raise his hands to wipe the drops away. A squelching sort of sound came from behind him, like someone walking fast through rain puddles. He turned as something grabbed his arm and torqued it backwards.

Harv held the knife hilt in his hand, lunging at Sam, thrusting the hilt out.

Sam ducked from the swipe, trying to free his arm from Harv's grasp. He kicked sideways at Harv, hitting something solid, but not humanly solid, like the consistency of thick pudding. Harv's grip felt solid as he pinned Sam's hand against the wall by the wrist. Sam stabbed at Harv with his knife, but Harv, squeezed his hand with a noise that popped and cracked his bones a step away from breaking them, sending the knife falling out of his hand and onto the floor.

Harv lunged the knife hilt at Sam's hand, and something invisible shot straight though Sam's palm and out the other side to the plaster, pinning him down.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean painted the last stroke of the sigil, pulling a bandana out from his pocket, wrapping up his bleeding hand, staring at the completed sigil that dribbled drops of blood. He gave the walls of the house a dirty look. "Last time you SOB."

Beside him, on the floor Sam's head jerked upwards, lurching up, then sideways.

"Sammy?" Dean dropped in a crouch beside his brother. "Sammy- hey!-"

Blood was spreading under Sam's right hand turned down the floorboards. Dean grabbed Sam's arm and turned his hand over. Blood poured out from a jagged hole that was cut straight through his palm.

"What the hell?" When Dean had come back from the other Nest, there were no visible wounds on him -even the jagged cut he had inflicted on himself to paint the sigil had vanished, like it had not been able to travel outside of the realm of the Soul Eater's Nest.

Sam's entire body was tense, the veins of his neck were taught and his skin was covered in sweat. His eyes were rolling around frantically under his closed lids like he was in the grip of a horrendous nightmare.

"Hey!" Dean grabbed Sam's head and shook him, slapping at both cheeks, but Sam remained unconscious in his grip, blood dripping faster from his palm.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

"I can't let you finish that seal Sam," Harv leant right up to Sam's face, breath too hot, smelling of something that had been left out too long in the sun to rot and decay.

The knife hilt levitated in the air over Sam's hand, his palm burned with the force and pain of a blade he felt burrowed through his flesh. Blood was rapidly leaking down his palm and onto the floor.

"I've been too long gone from that world; I can't go back-" Harv inhaled a long, drawn out breath, sniffing Sam's clothes. "You even _smell_ too bright-" he backed away and moved around Sam like a circling hunting dog.

"You're the one making the rain-"

Harv looked down at his body like he was just noticing the state of a pile of dirty clothes, he looked up with that milky white expression. "That _thing,_ does these things Sammy boy, I just _-_ " he pointed to the darkness behind him that crept up on him like smoke. "-stay here."

A hideous realization dawned on Sam. "You've been helping it collect souls."

"I had no choice!" Harv's voice echoed louder, manic. "You don't know what it was like! After Bobby painted that seal, that _Soul Eater-_ it couldn't _trap_ souls here, so it fed on me. It fed on me and, _fed_ on me, until there was nothing left but marrow! It didn't even finish the job of killin' me, it kept me alive, like I was hibernated fat. Couple of months ago that old man found this place and broke that seal. He moved in a week later, so did those kids, the ones who were partying one night and broke in when he was out-" Harv's eyes were now almost completely white "-I keep this thing fed, then it stays the hell away from me!"

"How many others were there?" Sam asked. "How many people have you trapped here?"

Harv lunged at Sam and twisted the hilt of the knife. Sam felt something rip apart in his hand.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

The blood started free flowing out of Sam's hand, turning his entire palm red.

"Sammy!" Dean's voice was a thundering boom. "Damnit!" He unwound the bloodstained bandana from his own hand, wrapping it tightly around Sam's. Even with the cloth, blood continued to leak through. "C'mon man, fight this!" Dean slapped Sam across the face, shaking his head with both hands. "Fight it ya hear me!"

 **xxxxXxxx**

* * *

Harv backed a step away watching Sam like an insect splattered on the windshield of a semi. "You'll see for yourself soon enough."

Something moved in the smoky recesses of the room, a figure drew itself out from the blackness. It wore a thick black hooded cloak, and through the opening in its hood, a bone white face stared at Sam hungrily.

"I don't trap them here Sammy," Harv backed away as the figure drew closer on soundless footsteps. "I just pave the road."

Sam stared at the cloaked blackness moving towards him, closer, and closer. "Harv, listen to me! It's a _monster!_ You don't have to do this!"

"Try being fed on in a continuous hell farther back than you can remember, then you can read me the riot act!" Harv's voice was now completely unhinged as the hooded form of the Soul Eater stopped directly in front of Sam.

Its face was a melted expression of torture, sharp angled wrinkles, jagged black eyes above bloodless lips that opened to a mouthful of teeth shaped like shards of broken glass bottles. It raised a gray hand of pointed bony fingers at Sam one at a time, then grabbed his jacket collar, staring at him with the same milk white eyes he had seen on Dean.

Sam inched his free hand slowly in a crawl with his fingers along the wall down to his jeans pocket where he kept his switchblade. He was pressed so hard against the wall, that there was not that much space against it to fit his hand into his pocket. He closed his hand around the handle of the knife, pulling it out, flipping the blade open in a downward motion.

The Soul Eater traced Sam's mouth with the tips of fingers that left his lips tingling like someone had sprayed them with acid. Sam clamped his mouth shut and tried to jerk away but it pried his lips open and dug grayed and decayed fingers against his teeth, prying them apart.

Sam drew the switch blade up with his hand, just as the Soul Eater rumbled a deep sucking sound and drew in a massive breath into Sam's open mouth.

Sam felt like he'd been struck by lightning, a white hot sensation tore through him, burning through every cell in his body.

 **xxxxXxxx**

* * *

Sam jerked up, then back, then up again, then began to shake harder in seizure like spasms.

"Sammy!" Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders. " _Sammy!"_

A clicking of a gun sounded off behind him. "Who the hell are you?-"

A doorway with white mullioned windows led outside into the backyard of the house. It was flung open, and a man stood only two feet behind Dean, aiming a double barreled shot gun right at him.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxxx**

Sam reached the switchblade up and stabbed the Soul Eater through its mouth. The cloaked figure jerked back and folded in on itself.

Sam pulled and twisted hard at the invisible knife force on his palm, wrenching his hand from the wall. Blood streamed down his hand, dripping to the floor, coloring the falling rain dark red. He turned back to the wall, spreading his bloodstained hand over the sigil, redrawing what the rain had half washed away.

The Soul Eater pulled the switch blade out of its mouth, and the blade vaporized in its hand.

Sam scraped his palm over the exposed plaster, squeezing his wrist to get the blood to pump out faster, drawing the diagonal intersecting lines, completing the design down to the two last swipes.

The hooded figure shot forward and grabbed at Sam, pinning him down by the back of his neck.

 **xxxxXxxx**

"Who the hell are you?!" The man's face looked half aged by whisky and half by constant anger, the butt of the twelve gauge tucked high into his shoulder, barrel drawing closer to Dean. "What the hell are you doing in my house?!"

Dean held up one hand, the other tightly gripping Sam's shoulder. "Listen to me-"

The man aimed his shot gun lower. "Get up!-"

"You don't want to do that-"

"GET UP!" The man pushed the barrel of the gun into Dean's neck and hauled him up by his jacket, jerking his hand off of Sam, pushing him behind him, rifle aimed high on Dean's chest.

The man turned to the blood stain drawn on the wall, then towards Dean's bloody knife on the counter. He picked up the bloody knife, glancing to Sam who was still seizing. His face contorted into rage. "You fucking bastards snort up and worship _devils_ in my house?" He slammed the knife on the counter, snapping the blade off of the hilt and throwing it with a move that sent it up the staircase and out of sight. " _You fucking bastards!"_ the gun swung back down, aimed dead on Sam who suddenly stopped convulsing and slumped against the cabinets.

" _Hey!"_ Dean called out loudly drawing the gun off of Sam and onto himself.

Dean raised his hands in the air when the gun's aim found him again. "Listen to me, alright? There's something in your house- something _bad!-"_

The rifle cocked loudly. "This house belonged to my daughter. Ten years ago something came into the house and dropped my grandchildren like flies- they didn't wake up for a week. Men came- did their evil _Satan_ work. My grandchildren came back, but they were _changed!-"_

Dean lowered his gaze to Sam, who lay in a sprawl, unmoving, then back to the man.

"It was like they had he life _sucked_ out of'em by the Devil! My daughter ran off on the house with her boys, but I stayed. I _stayed_ and I _waited_ for some more of them evil men to return, so I could do what I oughta have done the first time!"

* * *

 **xxxxXxxxx**

"Your soul is a patchwork quilt-," the voice reverberated and echoed a thousand times until it was hard to tell where the sound originated from. "But better than no soul at all-"

Sam pushed off the wall with his hand, but the form of the soul eater vaporized and he fell backwards on the floorboards, a splash of rainwater showering over him that smelled like blood.

Something grabbed him around the throat with both hands. Harv's face stared down with white eyes, inches from his own. "There's no leaving Sam-not anymore."

Sam gasped for air, around him ghost like feet and faces began to emerge, thin wispy like people, bodies gray with sad melted faces looking at him, hopeless caught between one breath of life and death.

The Soul Eater's shape emerged upside over Sam's head, pressing a hand against his chest, tight and gripping. Sam threw back his head and screamed as the sad gray faces loomed closer to him.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

"We're not the evil ones," Dean's eyes moved back to Sam. "That _thing_ that attacked your daughter is. Those men that came before, they were trying to get rid of it – just like we are."

The man turned back around walking over to the cabinets.

"Get up!-" the shout was directed at Sam, the rifle barrel poking against his leg, the man's finger poised on the trigger.

Sam's hunting knife still lay on the counter. Dean glanced over at it, then Sam, calculating how quickly it would take to reach the knife and reach his brother.

The man swung back around, aiming the rifle at Dean again. "What's he to you? You better answer my question boy, or I'll pump him full of buck shot and watch and see what you do!"

"He's my brother-" Dean said, voice low. "And I swear, if you lay a hand on him, this thing that attacked your grandchildren will be the last thing you need to worry about."

The man regarded Dean's statement for half a second, then turned around cocking and firing the rifle.

The noise of the buckshot round echoed, the bullet smoking a hole into the floor only an inch from Sam right leg, Sam didn't move. "I SAID GET UP BOY!" He pumped the rifle and redirected his aim, dead at Sam's chest, moving towards him.

Dean lowered his hands and threw himself on top of the man, levering the butt of the gun backwards, then up towards the ceiling, emptying the bullets into the plaster. White chunks fell on them like rain. Dean spun them both around so that he was in front of Sam.

He punched the man once, hard in the head and brought the body of the rifle up and over, pressing it against the man's neck, squeezing off his air.

The man choked and gasped, bucking against Dean, pushing with a force that knocked hard into Dean, sending him crashing backwards to the floor, dropping the rifle at his feet.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

Harv's body on top of him was solid, so were the hands choking off his air. But there was a lightness to Harv's form that Sam felt, like something made out of paper mâché. As much as his body rejected it, he lowered one of his hands off of the grip on Harv's hands at his throat and pushed it straight through his chest where it squelched, and it caved a hole into Harv's chest.

Harv lurched back and gasped, letting go of Sam's neck. Sam coughed and sucked in mouthfuls of air. He reached behind him, trying to grasp the wrinkled hand of the Soul Eater, at the same time spying his knife lying half under the sofa, inches away from his grip.

The Soul Eater's hand vaporized the minute he touched it, but the Soul Eater remained, one hand gone, mouth opened and began to suck, juicing the breath out of Sam. The hideous feeling of something foreign touching his soul lurched up like hot bile into Sam's throat. He hazily saw Harv pull back up on his feet and scream an animalistic sound, running towards him a move that kicked the fallen knife towards him.

Sam grabbed the knife and stabbed up at the Soul Eater's mouth. Like before it reared back, he rolled away with the remaining strength he had left just as Harv reached them.

Harv landed in the path of the Soul Eater, and there came a dying rasped choked scream as Harv's form shook and vaporized in a blue light up through the darkened mouth.

Sam could only watch in a stunned, horrible shock as Harv's body vanished completely with one last dying scream. The Soul Eater jerked its head over to him. He clambered to his feet, shoes sliding in the slick wet puddles, stumbling back over to the wall.

Sam dug his finger into the gaping wound in his palm and pulled out fingers streaked in red blood. He swiped down on the first stroke, rain water trickling off his fingers running through the sigil.

The Soul Eater yanked the knife out of its mouth, vaporizing like it had with the switchblade, looming up over seven feet high. The gray forms moved back from the hooded figure like frightened birds.

The cloaked figure swallowed the room's reflection in the mirror, white eyes angry.

Sam grunted, pulling out one last bit of blood from his hand, wiping off the blood in a downward stroke, finishing the sigil.

The symbol lit up orange. The Soul Eater rushed faster, hands extended, it's body vaporizing over Sam like black rain.

Sam lowered arms from where he had raised them up over his head. The rain had stopped, all around him the gray figures began to fade, their faces changing from a frown to sweet relief.

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

Dean's breath was being choked out of him. He reached up and threw a hard punch, the pressure on his neck releasing as the man stumbled backwards, He grabbed the hunting knife off the counter, but the man was back on him in a moment, shoving him hard against the counter, bending him backwards over the wood, pinning his head down by his hair. He yanked Dean's head up hard with a forceful jerk, slamming it down hard, grabbing for the knife in Dean's hand, twisting it around towards Dean's chest, pressing.

Dean groaned a yell.

Something slammed into the man's head, throwing him down on top of Dean. The man jerked up, feeling th, then turned around, and was hit again with the full force of a rifle butt across the bridge of his hose. He dropped sideways to the floor, unconsciousness.

Dean stared at the man on the ground, then up at Sam who stood over him, the rifle in his hand, blood pouring down his palm, his clothes and hair suddenly soaked through.

" _Dean- hey-"_ Sam reached over and pulled Dean up to his feet with one hand. "-come here-" A wince escaped from him that ended in a gasped cry as he stumbled backwards and fell against the cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen island, sliding to the floor.

"Sammy, Sam-!" Dean caught Sam by his elbow and followed him down to the wooden floor. "Easy, take it easy-" He pulled Sam backwards into his hold, water from Sam's wet clothes dampening his jeans.

"You did it," hey-" Dean pulled himself up as much around Sam as he could to stop the shaking he felt rippling up Sam's body. "you did it."

Sam didn't say anything, he pushed back further against Dean, patting him twice on the knee, before laying back in exhaustion.

Dean closed his hand over the top of Sam's head. "Nice work." Dean let his form fall back against the cabinet with a heavy sigh, gripping tight to his brother.


	3. Chapter 3

"Here," Dean held up a silver flask to Sam who was sitting on the house's porch steps, leaning against a thick white post.

Sam looked up, eyeing the flask. "I thought I owed you the next round."

"Yeah well I'll put it on your tab," Dean pushed the flask at Sam and sat down on the porch steps across from him. He unrolled a moleskin roll across his lap, revealing a dozen stainless steel field surgical instruments that had turned a light golden color from age. He pulled out a hooked suture needle already pre-threaded with some monofilament fishing line. He pulled out a needle driver- a set of plyers that resembled a pair of scissors- clamping the needle into the plyers with a _click_ of the adjustable hinges. He held his hand out to Sam, expectantly. "Alright, fork it over."

Sam turned so that he was turned more towards Dean, holding out his right hand that Dean had wrapped in his bandana.

Dean unwrapped the fabric slowly, feeling some sticky resistance from the drying blood on Sam's palm. The blue cloth finally ended and the hole torn into Sam's hand met Dean's eyes.

Sam's wince was very audible. "How-?"

"Hit first." Dean pointed at the flask.

Sam took a long pull of the Southern Comfort inside the flask as he felt Dean rotate his hand. The pain hit him at the same time he felt the whiskey burn down his throat. "How's it look?" He took another pull, filling his system with alcohol for what was going to happen next.

The width of the wound was thin, but it was jagged, extending vertically across Sam's palm; layers of flesh were flipped and flayed out like sashimi. The wound extended through to the front of Sam's hand forming a hole the size of a finger under his second knuckle stuck with bits of flesh on the outside.

"At least it stopped bleeding," Dean said this like it wasn't a high point. "Bend your fingers-"

Sam did so with a long winded wince, closing his hand into a fist.

Dean watched him with a scrutinizing gaze. "Can you feel'em?"

"Yeah," Sam grunted as he extended his hand out flat again with a hard, painful exhale.

"Seriously man, you need a _doctor_ , this goes straight through your hand."

"Just sew it up," Sam took a breath like it was a pull of alcohol. "If I can't feel it by tomorrow I'll hit up an ER."

Dean sighed in frustration at Sam's stubbornness. "Alright, but don't blame me if you end up being a permanent lefty." He took the flask from Sam, pouring a small trickle of the amber colored whiskey onto the needle, then handed the flask back to Sam. "Down that. _All_ of it. Drunk you is better than shocky you," He watched Sam tilt the bottle to his lips and swallow the last four mouthfuls of whiskey inside the flask.

Sam coughed at the burn of the liquor hitting his system all at once.

"You ready?"

Sam coughed one more time, "Do it-"

Dean set Sam's hand, palm side up, on his knee. He picked up a bottle of spring water by his feet, pouring some of the water onto his bandana wiping off the dried blood stains around the wound. Once he was done, he poured the remaining water into the wound to try and flush it out as best as he could.

Sam jerked almost a foot in the air from the feeling of the water going into his wound. He saw, with some nausea, some of the water dripping through to the other side of his hand, staining Dean's jeans red. The liquor had yet to fully hit his system, and he had to close his eyes and let out a long breath that was tangled up in a scream. When he opened his eyes again, Dean was eying him critically.

"You okay?" Dean had the needle driver poised in his hand.

"I'm good," Sam gasped.

Dean stared at him in disbelief, "Yeah sure you are." He pushed down the flayed edges of Sam's hand back down into his palm, pinching the edges of skin closed with his fingers. The hooked needle went in through one torn end of skin and came back out the other, the fishing line making a quick ' _whshing'_ noise as Dean pulled it through. He eyed his brother before going through with another pass with the needle, Sam held for two more stitches. But on the third one, his expression was far from painless, eyes screwed up tight. On the fifth stich in, Sam was white knuckling the stair he was sitting on with his free hand.

It took twelve stitches to close the wound on the front of Sam's palm. Dean had deliberately made them as small as he could because of how large and how deep the wound had gone, not wanting them to split open again.

Sam's face was pale, and his hand shook hard on Dean's knee.

"You need a break? We're out of liquor, but we have beer in the trunk-"

"No," Sam panted. "It's not that big on the other side, maybe four stitches."

"Sam-"

"Finish it."

The tone in Sam's voice was one that Dean recognized all too well, the one that said _get this over with and I can drink the pain down all at once._

 _Masochist._ Dean turned Sam's hand over, stitching the remaining gash closed as quickly as he could while still being efficient. When he was done he tied a surgical knot and snipped the thread.

Sam's head hung low, and listed against the wide support post of the porch.

"Alright you're done," Dean let the word _done_ have more than one meaning. He tore open a pack of rolled gauze and wrapped it around Sam's, hand, taping it shut with ancient looking, but still sticky, first aid tape. "I'm getting beer from the trunk, _two_ for you-" he stood up and gave Sam's shoulder a slap before walking down the stairs.

Sam let his eyes close against the afternoon sun that had come up over the yard while he had been visiting an alternate dimension. A flock of black birds settled in a tree that was half buried under the overgrown grass and weeds.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs opened his eyes again, Dean stood over him, holding out a brown beer bottle.

Sam took it from him. "Thanks-" he paused, midway through twisting off the bottle's cap. "What happened to that guy I took out?"

"I tied him up in the basement-" Dean uncapped the bottle of the beer he'd gotten for himself, tossing the cap into the overgrown yard, taking a slow pull from it. "I just peeked through the side basement window. He's still out – you reamed him pretty hard," he grabbed Sam's hand and hoisted him to his feet. "But I don't know how long that'll last. Also, I called the local PD and called in a tip about a squatter kidnapping two people inside a house-so you might wanna drink your beer on the road -"

"Right," Sam stood up, bracing himself on the support beam of the porch, walking slowly down the steps. Dean hovered near him until he saw he was able to make it to the yard without falling over. They walked back down the crumbling walkway through the jungle of a yard, and out to where the Impala was parked on the road.

Sam walked to the passenger side door opening it, but didn't climb inside.

Dean stopped midway getting into the car, watching his brother staring up at the house. "Sam-man we gotta go-"

Sam stared again at the house before he eased himself down into the seat.

Dean gunned the engine and the car drove off.

They drove for five hours straight without stopping, wanting to put as many miles between them and the Soul Eater house as possible in case they were now wanted men.

Sam felt exhausted, but barely slept, only zoned out, watching the sliding drops of rain against the car window from a storm they were caught in.

"Harv was one of us Dean-"

Dean turned to him. "What happened to Harv wasn't your fault Sam-" his voice carried over the _Lynyard Skynard_ song on the radio.

"I practically threw him to the Soul Eater."

"No. You didn't. Okay?" Dean said. "Sam, he was trying to kill you. He'd been fed on for _years_ by the Soul Eater. It deep fried his mind, he was too far gone. You did what you had too. Oldest rule of hunting - you can't save everyone."

Sam looked over at Dean in the dark car, feeling the pull of his stitches, the burn of his wound. "Dean, how many times have we followed that rule for each other? You saved me back at that house. I've done the same in reverse-"

Dean looked away from the road and over at him. "That's different and you know it."

" _For you know I need you  
More than the air I breathe  
And I guess I'm just trying' to tell you-  
_

 _Oh, what you mean to me, yeah yeah.."_

* * *

 **xxxxXxxx**

 **End**

Lyrics are from: "I Need You" by: Lynard Skynard.

R/R Please.


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